Traditional Pickling in L'viv

Pickle Project friend Eugene Chervony, deputy director of the Museum of Folk Architecture and Life in L'viv, sent along these great photos of pickling onions, tomatoes and plums,  from the museum.   Enjoy!

The Taste of Summer: Watermelon

Sarah and I don't manage to be in the same place very often, but two weeks ago our schedules brought us together for lots of catching up over dinner in Albany, NY.  She arrived with a lovely small watermelon from a Vermont farm stand, and it seemed the perfect time to write an appreciative blog about Ukrainian watermelons.  Watermelons (and melons of all types including one called the Collective Farm Woman  are another marker of summer).  Melons appear stacked up sky high in markets, and in funny wire cages on street corners.  There's nothing better than fresh watermelon, as appreciated by this young boy in above in a historic postcard from Ukraine; but Ukrainian cooks are adept at making that summer flavor last.  

Recipes abound on the web for pickled watermelon rind,  but recipes for watermelon pickles that include the red flesh are much harder to find, but it's a common treat in Ukraine.   Last October, at the Dacha restaurant in Odessa,  pickled watermelon joined a plate of other pickled fruits and vegetables for an incredible treat for the four of us on our Pickle Project Conversation Tour.  It's at the top of the plate in this photo, joined by pickled cucumbers, apples, peppers, tomatoes, beets, and more.  But this kind of pickle is far from just restaurant food.  It's made  by home cooks as well.   Pickled watermelon makes up part of a winter meal at home in Ukraine below  (thanks to Grace Eickmayer for the photo).

Want to try pickling watermelon yourself?  Here's a recipe via Saveur magazine.  It originally appeared in Pickled: Preserving a World of Tastes and Traditions by Lucy Norris (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2003); and was contributed to that volume by Sophia Vinokurau, the owner of M & I International Foods in Brooklyn, New York.

1⁄4 cup kosher salt
1⁄4 cup sugar
1 tbsp. pickling spices
3⁄4 tsp. cayenne
1⁄2 tsp. distilled white vinegar
8 cloves peeled garlic, smashed
5 ribs celery, coarsely chopped
1⁄2 bunch dill, roots trimmed
1  2-lb. piece watermelon, rind left on,
   cut into 1"-thick wedges

1. In a large nonreactive bowl or pot, stir together salt, sugar, pickling spices, cayenne, vinegar, garlic, celery, dill, and 8 cups water until salt and sugar dissolve. Submerge the watermelon wedges. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 week and up to 2 weeks before serving.

It's International Pickle Week!

Yes,  it's International Pickle Week...and in celebration,  here's some of our favorite pickles we've seen, tasted, wondered about and enjoyed in Ukraine. Above,  pickles from a memorable lunch under the trees last summer in a Ukrainian village in Donbass. Got a pickle picture of your own to share?  Head on over to our Facebook page to post it there.

Train food--pickles and string cheese (out of frame, I believe, vodka).

Pickled tomatoes, two different markets.

Cucumber pickles, and cucumbers for pickling.

Pickled mushrooms, top and a vegetable assortment.  Below, every kind of imaginable pickled mushroom and below that, pickled apples.

Enjoy!

Boy’s Eye View

This post is the second in a series about the distinct Greek communities of Mariupol, a region and oblast in eastern Ukraine, near the Sea of Azoz. Special thanks to Yangnecheer family and Galina and Carrina.

Under bright blue skies, the fruit trees were flourishing with bright red cherries. As we ambled the lanes of the Greek village of Sartana, we admired the tidy, brightly colored houses, fence rows and thriving kitchen gardens we passed. Chatting idly with a friend in English, we heard a friendly little “hello” from behind a cloud of green leaves. Following this welcoming voice, we met the charming 11-year-old Vova. Vova lives in Sartana with his sister, Irina (21), her husband, Alexander (25), and their children, little Tatiana (1) and Varvara (2.5).

The family was hanging laundry in the patio, as we strolled by. Alexander told us that he is from a Greek family and has lived in Sartana his whole life. He said that, during the harvesting months, the family spends much of their summer tending the garden and preserving the food they grow for the winter months.

With a shy smile and generous nature, Vova, gave us a tour of their garden. They raise cucumbers, potatoes, beets, cabbages (two rotations), onions, squashes, eggplants, carrots and an array of herbs, including parsley, chervil (!) and dill.

Walnut and cherry trees line one end of the garden, the other flanked with bushes of raspberries, gooseberries and currents. Grapevines lace the fence between their patio and garden, where jars were set out for ongoing preservation of the summer’s bounty. Just the day before, the family had made raspberry jam and pickles.

As we explored the garden, Vova picked the perfect gooseberries, passing them to me to enjoy and occasionally popping one into his own mouth too. He described the progress of each vegetable in the garden, thoughtfully describing the desired growing conditions of each plant with impressive insight.

He expressed concern about the season’s meager harvest of apricots and apples. “Last year, people kept all the honey for themselves. So, this year, there are not so many bees. There are not enough to pollinate all the fruit trees.” “But” he said smiling, “this year has been pretty good for berries” he explained. “The raspberries are much sweeter than last year.”

KGB Pickles

Kim McCray, returned Peace Corps volunteer, ends her food trilogy with a pickle memory.  Thanks Kim, for sharing, and Peace Corps volunteers,  we'd love to hear from more of you!

 

This is the Pickle Project, so it is only fitting that I end this list with a pickle memory. 

Toward the end of my service I agreed to participate in “Adopt-A-Cluster”, a practice developed by Peace Corps to encouraged seasoned, veteran volunteers to visit the brand-new trainee groups, (clusters), at their training sites.  Because the trainees had been interacting almost exclusively with Peace Corps staff and host-country nationals up to this point, getting the opportunity to pick the brains of current volunteers and get feel for the practicalities of Peace Corps life beyond the technicalities of training was invaluable.

So, with fond memories of the volunteer who had adopted my cluster two years before, I agreed to help with the project and boarded a train to Kyiv and then caught a bus and headed north to the city of Chernihiv.  A Ukrainian Peace Corps staff member met me at the bus stop on an especially cold and dark night and explained to me the plans for the next day as we walked quickly down a bumpy unlit sidewalk and then weaved our way through a maze of Soviet high-rise apartment buildings.  Soon enough we arrived at our destination and rang the buzzer.  A young woman answered the door, and pattering up behind her came an elderly woman. We were introduced – her name was Luibov – and I learned that Luibov would be hosting me for the next two nights.  The Peace Corps staff member then gave me a piece of paper with directions to where I was supposed to go the next morning, and left.  Luibov was cheerful and I was very pleased to find that she spoke only Russian (I had been trained and continued to study Russian, but often heard Ukrainian or the Russian-Ukrainian blend “Surjik” at my site, so communicating with someone who only used Russian was always a relief).  It was late however, so we did not talk much; she showed me to the living room where I was to sleep on the couch, and said goodnight.

The next morning I found a typical Ukrainian breakfast spread for me on the table – buttered bread, slices of cheese and sausage, peach juice, and a bowl of pickles.  Ten minutes later, I had eaten three large dill pickles and packed two more for my lunch. They were very simply the best pickles I have ever had in my life.  Perfectly crunchy and tart but with a sweetness I’d never tasted before or since.  That night I cleaned the bowl once again and asked for the recipe.  In typical Ukrainian fashion, Luibov didn’t write it down but instead tried to explain the process verbally.  I knew I was in trouble when early on in her explanation she said “…then I add that brown seed…I don’t remember what it’s called…” 
 

Several minutes later she finished giving me her “recipe”, and while I had a vague notion of what she had done, I definitely had not grasped enough details to duplicate her process.  Now, more than three years later, I remember nothing about that recipe except the brown mystery seed.

The next morning, as I was packing my bag to leave, Luibov approached me with a photo in a frame and a box and told me to sit down.  I was worried that if I didn’t leave soon I might miss my train, but I agreed to stay a few more minutes.  We sat down and Luibov opened the box. Inside were medals, newspaper clippings, coins, and various other knick-knacks.  She asked me if I knew what they were and I guessed army memorabilia, as medals from the Great Patriotic War (WWII) are commonplace souvenirs in Ukraine.  She smiled and shook her head and then showed me the photo. “That is me, and that is my husband” she said. The picture was of a couple standing on a stage in some sort of official ceremony. “We were in the KGB, the both of us, for almost thirty years. This is us receiving an award for our excellent service.”  

Now of course, having lived in a former Soviet country for more than two years, I am sure that this was not my first interaction with someone who had been affiliated with the KGB, but this was the first time I’d been made aware of it.  The shock factor hit me as I realized that I had spent two nights under the roof of a 30 year KGB veteran.  Luibov then went on to joke that in all those 30 years she had never actually met an American until now.   “Look at these things Kim!” she exclaimed as she pawed through the box, “I cannot believe you are here in my home!” I shook my head in disbelief as well and we continued to laugh about it as I grabbed my bag and walked down the hall towards the front door.  I thanked her for her hospitality and headed out. I hadn’t made it more than a few steps when she called to me and scurried after me, holding out plastic baggy. I opened it – inside was a jar of pickles. Delicious KGB pickles.   

Top:  Kim and Luibov

Bottom:   Pyotre Petrovich Konchalovsky (b.Ukraine, 1876-1956) Still Life with Teapot and Breakfast. 1946

I Can Almost Taste Them: Food Memories of a Peace Corps Volunteer

By Kim McCray, Peace Corps Ukraine 2006-2008

We're pleased to welcome another guest blogger.  Kim McCray was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine several years ago and is now  This is the first of three posts about those food memories that stand still stand out,  several years on.  Kim is from Staunton, Virginia and currently lives in Raleigh, NC where she is completing a dual-degree between North Carolina State University's History Department (MA in Public History) and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Library and Information Science School (MS in Library Science).  Come May, she'll graduate and be seeking work as an archivist. And of course, if you've a food memory to share of Ukraine (or Belarus, or Georgia, or Moldova, or...) we'd love to hear it!

Ask any returned Peace Corps Ukraine volunteer to make a list of the most vivid memories of their time in Ukraine, and somewhere in the top five recollections, probably sandwiched between “crowded marshrutka rides” and “bundled up starfish babies” will be a mention of a Ukrainian dish – of where they were when they first tasted it, of who prepared it for them, and what was going on in their life at the time.  This only makes sense, as just as Ukrainians take great pride in their traditional dishes, we Peace Corps volunteers take great joy in eating them!  In the middle of winter, when it gets dark by 4:30, the temperature dips to zero and without internet or television a book seems your only companion, there is little that can warm the heart of a Peace Corps volunteer quite as much as a neighborly invitation to come enjoy a hot cup of tea and a slice of tort.  And in the hottest days of summer, when school is in recess and traveling from summer camp to summer camp and hosting visiting friends and family from the States starts to wear thin, nothing can beat escaping from a stiflingly hot bus at the end of a long journey to find a kind babusya waiting to sell you a bucket of the most juicy and sweet strawberries you have ever eaten for the high price of about 50 cents.

Now, more than three years removed from my Peace Corps service in the village of Priyutivka (Oleksandriya Region, Kirovograd Oblast), these memories are every bit as rich as they were during my service.  Three particular food memories stand out above those already stated and trigger memories so rich that “I can almost taste them.”

1. THE FIRST SUPPER 
As I am sure is true for most former Peace Corps volunteers, my memories of the day I first met my host-family are a bit fuzzy.  It seems that my brain spent so much energy feeding the anxiety and anticipation of the day that it was not able to properly store the memories as it did later Peace Corps events.  The snippets I do remember well are scattered - I remember looking out the window and watching other volunteers pour off the bus when it reached their site.  I remember having difficulty shutting my suitcase in the back of the rickety Lada car that carried me to my house.  I sort of remember sitting on the sofa and sharing a family photo album with my new host-siblings.  The rest of the afternoon is a blur.  It was all so daunting after all - encountering the people I would be living with for the three months of training before my departure to my permanent site.  I did not know what to expect of them, of their home, and especially had no idea how I was going to communicate with them in anyway using the four or five Russian sentences I had managed to learn so far.  I was excited of course, but also quite afraid.

Yet, although most of the first day has now vanished, one more memory sticks out - the first meal I ate with my host family (above with Kim)  I will never forget it.  In fact, I can honestly say that the meal was what set me at ease and alleviated the stress of the day, and it was the meal the symbolized my true entrance into the family.  

 I was summoned from my room by my 17 year old host sister Zhenya with calls of “Kushat! Kushat!” (“Eat! Eat!”), spoken as she moved an invisible spoon towards her mouth. I got the hint and followed her into the kitchen.  I sat down to the table with some hesitation, not having any idea what to expect and fearing the worst, (word on the street among the volunteers was that Ukrainians liked this thing called “salo”, raw big fat…), but I was pleased when Natasha, my host mother, set the table with a spread that I found completely agreeable – pounded pork cutlets, fried to a golden brown, homemade “puree” (mashed potatoes), brown bread and butter, and yes, homemade pickles.  The steam rose off the serving dishes and met with the colder air in a billow as my host mother piled my plate high. I watched as my beautiful host-sister Zhenya ate her food daintily, as any young woman should, and as my 15 year old host brother Sasha dunked his mashed potatoes into a ketchup-mayonnaise dipping sauce and ate ravenously, as any young man should. I ate at a pace somewhere in between, devouring everything I could while taking breaks to flip through my pocket dictionary in mostly vain attempts to answer Zhenya’s questions about “what Americans eat.”  My host mother asked me at least three or four times if the food was good and if I wanted more.  My brother wanted to know if I’d ever had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  And so began the tradition of gathering in a warm and cozy kitchen for the nightly exchange of Ukrainian and American culture.

Of course I later came to learn that the meal I’d eaten that night was a very typical Ukrainian meal, and in fact, by the time I moved to my permanent site in late December and moved in with another host mother with a penchant for mashed potatoes and cutlets, I began to get tired of the dish as I craved for the out of season produce that most Ukrainians do not have access to or cannot afford. But I always looked back fondly on that first meal with my host family, during which I felt such an offering of sincere hospitality and affection that I never again felt completely alone in Ukraine. I had a family. They are still my family.

Above:  Pork cutlets via Ukrainian Cuisine 

Will 2012 Be the Year of the Pickle? Only with Your Help!

It's official, James Oseland of Saveur Magazine has named pickles as one of his top food trends for 2012. We're happy to be ahead of the curve as 2011 was a pretty amazing year for the Pickle Project and we hope 2012 will be more of the same.

A year ago, we were deep into our Kickstarter fundraising efforts. We still can't say enough about the support we received. From across the world--including Sweden, Japan, Ukraine, Canada and the United States--dozens of you pitched in to help make our effort to document and share Ukrainian food traditions a reality. We truly felt buoyed by all of your good wishes when we returned to Ukraine.

Our two Pickle Project trips this year were each very different, but both were distinguished by the warmth and hospitality of Ukrainian friends and colleagues. Our three weeks in high summer were full of berries, of home-cooked meals, of walks in hills of Crimea and the Carpathians, and of long conversation-filled train rides for the two of us. This fall, returning with Caleb Zigas and Rueben Nilsson, our four Pickle Project Conversations cemented our friendships with great organizational partners the Bulgakov Museum, Eko Art, PIC NGO and the Centre for Cultural Management. We ate, we drank, we found ourselves in conversations that ranged from what we eat for dinner to how to support small farmers. Thanks to the Trust for Mutual Understanding and Shelburne Farms for making this possible.

Back in the US, I had the chance to share the work of the Pickle Project in five different presentations at locations ranging from a Catskills community roundtable to an American Association of Museums presentation in Texas. Lively questions always ensued.

But what will 2012 hold? And how can you help?
We continue to be inspired and driven by the interests, questions and comments from our Kickstarter backers, our readers and the people we engage through the Pickle Project, in Ukraine, the US and elsewhere.

We're working on a number of different ideas--ranging from promoting further exchange, to exhibitions, to projects with young people. We'd love to find ways to bring the Pickle Project conversations to different countries, to learn and share perspectives.

We've got a long list of blog posts from our 2011 visits to keep you up on--everything from Greek food in eastern Ukraine and manti making in Crimea to making currant wine in L'viv-- and the debut of some video interviews. Stay tuned.

But about you--if you're in Ukraine, we'd love your help. We've greatly appreciated our guest bloggers and hope that more of you will consider joining in and sharing family stories, traditions, or what you've learned about village and urban foodways. In particular, Peace Corps volunteers, we'd love to hear from you.

And if you have ideas about what's next for us--let us know. Thanks to all of you for making 2011 an incredible year for the Pickle Project!

Dach(a)ed Hopes; A Non-Religious Jewish Story About Odessa

And another great guest post from Caleb Zigas.

When I was nine years old and in line at Safeway, the cashier wished my mother a very earnest Merry Christmas. We’re Jewish, Ireplied probably annoyingly, we don’t celebrate Christmas. My mom, clearly notnine and far better mannered than I, wished her the same and whisked me away. Allof this to say that I’ve rarely been scared to say who I am.

When I told people I was going to Ukraine, I felt like atl east one out of five told me they had roots there. And if the literature of Jewish America (or at least of my DC Jewish same-age-but-went-to-private-school-but-is-really-talented-(begrudgingly) cohort Mr. Safran Foer) can tell us anything it is that this beautiful port city knows its Judaism. And, with that, the Jewish part of this story ends. Because for whatever confounding reason (and I could write about 1,200 more unnecessary words un-confounding them) I did not articulate my Judaism in this fine city. And I found that to be just fine.

Instead, I felt lucky to be connected to a part of Ukraine that, until then, had seemed hidden. Through circuitous social connections and the power of Facebook, we were introduced to the inner-workings of the Kompot empire in Odessa, a network of 6 restaurants all with aspirations to be a new kind of Ukrainian place. Sitting outside at Kompot’s second location on a pedestrian-friendly street in the sun, with the marketing manager, one couldn’t help but think that they were well on the way.

For much of the time that I spent in the Ukraine I couldn’t help but think about one of La Cocina’s program participants, Anda Piroshki.Anna Tvelova, the owner, moved to the States about 10 years ago, waited tables and finally decided to pursue her dream of business ownership with a baked-piroshki model. Her food is delicious, original and beautifully branded,and as I watched Ukraine essentially speed into capitalism as I simply stood there, I couldn’t help but think that there was a dearth of well-branded national fast-casual foods and that someone just needed to take it there.

Perfectly appointed,detail-oriented and with middle-class food, the Kompot experience was unlike most ofthe basement dining that we did in so many ways. But, perhaps even more interestingly, the partner restaurant Dacha, took the concept of Ukrainian food and elevated it beyond my expectation in a way that looked both inward and outwards.

Located in a former sanitarium a ten minute taxi ride from downtown Odessa, Dacha simulates the experience of the gentried middle class of this part of the world's history--pre-Soviet Union. It may not be the dacha that your family has, but it’s the one you and I have read about in Russian novels with balls and carriages. But updated and, maybe even sometimes, kind of ironic.

We were greeted with a selection of six vodkas, several the house brand, and one of which (not from the house) was called Jewish Vodka (nocomment). From there, we sampled six kinds of homemade pickles and perused amenu full of Ukrainian food offerings that sounded simply delicious. The place was beautiful, warm and the staff was knowledgeable and passionate. Most interestingly, though the place can seat 400 in the summer, they seem to have no problem bringing people to them.

Which means that someone in Odessa is eating. In our conversation here we heard from a smattering of Odessans, all of which came from very different places. What was amazing about a place like Dacha was thefamiliarity of the concept despite the difference in the food. Nowhere in the States will you find pickled watermelon, fish-stuffed fish (basically gefilte fish)and bread soda on a menu, but you wouldn’t have felt out of place in the dining room with white wooden chairs and a wood-burning oven.

Our conversation was largely dominated by currents of frustration at industrialized agricultural practice, skepticism of supermarkets and the shocking straw poll that saw everyone claiming to not only know to make but also actively making salo in their homes. Meanwhile, Dacha diners can buy“Odessan” food, take it home in a branded Dacha bag and buy branded Dacha preserves whenever they want. I can’t help but admit to liking that both are an option.

So when we arrived two hours early to the train station the next day after dining in the dark the night before (though a generator was procured midway through the meal) in yet another basement, I wasn’t even kind of disappointed to be eating in Kompot yet again. But I’m not sure that I know what that means for Ukrainian food.

Chatting and Chewing in Kyiv

As Caleb mentioned in the previous post, the first in this autumn’s series of Pickle Project Community Conversations took place at the Bulgakov Museum. The museum is perched on the renowned Andriyivsky Uzviv, a steep, curvy little street that winds down a Kyivan hill. The museum observes the life and works of the beloved Ukrainian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, most famous for his novel The Master and Margarita, the subversive commentary on the oppression of the Soviet Regime.

The building itself was Bulgakov’s home for a time and the Museum uses the house’s rooms to imaginatively braid together the themes from Bulgakov’s own life with that of the Turbin family, featured in his novel The White Guard, set against the chaos of the Russian Civil War. The Bulgakov Museum is known for inventive programming that often includes food traditions, drawing on Bulgakov’s life and works. For me, the Bulgakov Museum has a warm, familiar and almost magical quality. Thus, it made a wonderful and fitting setting for the event.

The evening began with cheerful mingling and refreshments. Between refreshing sips of icy vodka, a personal favorite, and nibbles of black bread and salo, participants chatted and jotted down responses to questions posted on the walls with thick markers. These included “What is your favorite meal? and “What makes food natural?” The crowd was a lively mix that included diplomats and dairy farmers, rural development specialists, municipal managers, grandmas, college students and teenagers.

A sequence of deeper discussions ensued, sparked by mini-presentations around the food-centric themes of personal memory, entrepreneurship, science and sustainability. We told stories about our grandparents and grandchildren. We laughed about why we hate some foods and love others. We talked about what it means to make food for your children and if a person can actually “taste the love.” We explored the element of trust in our food system and what our national dishes really are. There was technical tête-à-tête, about calves’ intestines and compliance requirements among the dairy professionals in the room, and the salt-to-water ratio for good pickles between experimental American picklers (ahem..) and seasoned Ukrainian ones.

To accompany these exchanges, there were second and third courses to our feast. We enjoyed kasha with sautéed onions, golden cabbage and squashes with caramelized pork. There were home-made pickles and marinated mushrooms! Oh my! Then, we had coffee, tea and sweets.

The evening concluded with the exchanging of home canned goods, raw dairy products, hugs and kisses. Set in the Bulgakov Museum’s comfortable space, the event and dialogue offered many levels of engagement and was enriched by the openness and energy of the participants. And, we headed out into the dark Kyivan night, a bit brighter by the connections we'd made.

The Bulgakov Museum maintains an interesting blog and Linda has written more about the Bulgakov Museum at the Uncataloged Museum.

Market Report: on the road between Donetsk and Mariupol, July 2011

On Tuesday, on our way back to Donetsk from Sartana, the Greek village near Mariupol, we stopped at a highway-side market to see what was for sale.  The vendors told us they were all from nearby villages.  Here's what was for sale.  Above, pickles and pickled peppers.

Zucchini and patty pan squash.

Hazelnuts (the first we've seen in a from-the-village kind of market)

These are Georgian, we think.  They are an almond stuffed inside a grape surrounded by a sort of hard fruit jelly.  Anyone know the name?

Red and black currants.

Smoked fish.  And finally,  two market vendors who were kind enough to pose for us at their work.